AC/DC albums and bad economic times

"It just seems to happen, that every time AC/DC get big in Britain, (they are always big, but their career ebbs and flows a little bit; sometimes they are phenomenally huge, and other times they are merely immensely huge) when they become phenomenally huge, it seems to coincide with tough and uuncertain economic conditions in Britain.

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"I think the reason, quite seriously, that AC/DC become popular in times of economic hardship, and particularly uncertainty, is because they represent something very solid. They're entertainment that is very escapist, but they are entertainment where you know exactly what it is you are going to get.

"I would say (the song) 'You Shook Me All Night Long' by AC/DC because that is the fantasy that they represent. It's a kind of crazy, sexy, teenage one-night stand, and that is what they represented in 1980, that is what they represented in 1974, that is what they represented in 1990, and that is what they represent now, despite the fact that the members of the band are in their 50s.

"They are not producing songs that chime with the times in the way that 'For What It's Worth' by Buffalo Springfield might have chimed with the times in 1966-67, a time of a bit of unrest, Vietnam war, that kind of thing. That is not what AC/DC are doing.

"The reason they are successful is because they are apart from the times. Nothing stops them from doing the same thing. It's not like they are commenting on the times in any way, they aren't reflecting on the times in any way. In fact, it is the exact opposite that makes them popular at times like this."

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